Oops! I knitted again...

I think I've got the knitting fever! Let me rephrase that, I know I have the knitting fever! I haven't been crocheting much recently, since there have been so many things I wanted to learn about knitting! Don't worry, I still love to crochet, and I will keep on crocheting!

My latest project is again a Stephen West pattern, it's called Earth & Sky.

The yarn I used for this project is Golden Eagle Alpaca, which is a 100% Alpaca, fingering weight. I love how vibrant the turquoise is next to the black and gray! I've only recently discovered how much I love turquoise! I think it works great in this color combination! 

It was a little bit scary to start such a big project (I started with 3 stitches and ended up with almost 500) especially since the yarn is so very very thin! I worked the shawl with size 4mm knitting needles.
I loved working on this project, but I did put it aside sometimes. I'm not the best 'purler' and it really slows me down! I'm telling you, rows of 500 purl stitches aren't that much fun! I'm chuffed with the results though!

Because of the fingering weight yarn, and a bit bigger needles, there is a lot of drape! It's incredibly soft (I love alpaca) and even though it looks very thin, when wrapped around my neck, it keeps me perfectly warm! 

The colorwork is very clever in this pattern. It's called 'Intarsia knitting' which scared me when I first heard it. However, I love a good challenge! It turned out very easy, you just twist the working yarn over the new color of yarn before you start knitting with that new color, and on your way back you do the same. This way you don't have to carry the colors at the backside of your work (which wouldn't have looked so nice on this scarf). In the picture below you can see the intarsia quite clear, but I think it looks very neat!

I couldn't help taking my scarf out for a little photo shoot at a lovely location around the corner! It is such a beautiful and sunny day today!

Here's a shot of the same place but from a distance. I walk past this everyday on my way to work, and always love how pretty it looks! In winter it was even more beautiful, everything was covered in snow and ice! 

It's a lovely day here in Hamburg! I'm very lucky because I have two days off now. I can enjoy the beautiful weather and spend time doing the things I love! These two days were very welcome because my head is overloaded with information with all the rehearsals I'm doing. I only started less than 2 weeks ago and we've already learned 5 shows. I will elaborate a little bit more about my job in another post and when I'm a little less busy ;-)

Have a beautiful day everybody!

Dennis xxx

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Hospital Knitting and Model for a day!

I'm back! I'm home!

I'm very excited to be out of the hospital. As you might have read, I was in the hospital for a tonsillectomy, and stayed for 6 days. The operation itself was a breeze as I was completely under, but I think nobody could have really warned me enough about the post-op pain. I won't go into too much detail, but I didn't know it was going to be this bad. I knew that having this surgery would come with a lot more pain as an adult, but I had no other choice, they had to go!

It's been 10 days now, and I'm finally able to enjoy most foods again. I'm still on top of my pain meds, but it's all very manageable by now! What really surprised me, was how very painful it was to have ice cream in the days after surgery. Everybody always says that that's the only good thing about having this procedure. The endless supply of ice cream! The first day after surgery I asked the nurses for an ice pop to relieve some of the pain, but boy was I wrong. It was stinging like crazy and making everything worse! I managed to finish it somehow, but only because I knew it could help recovery.

The only thing that made me forget the pain a little, besides my meds, was knitting!
Yes that's right, I took all my knitting needles and a lot of yarn with me. It was the perfect opportunity to finish some projects, and start new ones!

I would have my laptop positioned on my bed, watching my favorite TV Series (Will & Grace), and I would knit for hours and hours. I really gave my head as much distraction as possible! I had to follow the pattern, make my stitches, give some attention to the series I was watching, and all this together really made me less aware of the pain! It might sound crazy, but I knitted about 8-10 hours a day!

Like I mentioned in my other post about knitting, I'm very much enjoying the patterns of Stephen West. In the hospital I finally had some time to finish the Loxley hooded scarf I'd been working on.

So this is a little scary now, I've never really modeled any of my projects, but here we go. Matt & I had a good laugh shooting these shots. To pose or not pose? To smile or not to smile? We had a lot of fun and shot about a 100 pictures, but only these made the cut!  So here goes:

Here I'm wearing the Loxley (Hooded Scarf). Pattern can be found here: Loxley by Stephen West.

Here's a clear shot of the back of the hood! This one wasn't so hard to model ;-)

 Of course we needed a crazy one as well! 

This is the Windschief Hat. Pattern can be found here: Windschief by Stephen West
I feel like I should have chosen a yarn that's a little more sturdy, because it shapes a little too well around my ears, making them stand out a little. But it was still a very interesting pattern, and I love the textures in this hat!

Trying to look seriously at the ground. That's how it's done right?

This is the Botanic Hat. Pattern can be found here: Botanic Hat by Stephen West.
It's a very nice pattern, and the great thing about this hat is: It's reversible! There's no wrong side with this hat! The pattern is very clever, especially because both sides have a very different look! Judge for yourselves!

 

I do love black & white!

And this is what it looks like if you wear it inside out, or ouside in, or...?

 

And a again, randomly looking to the side.

I've had so much fun knitting these patterns and can recommend them to everyone! They're fun to make, very wearable, and look amazing! I guess staying in the hospital wasn't such a bad thing after all!

It's been really nice reading all the lovely and warm messages from all of you! It really made me happy whilst being in the hospital. Thank you all very much!

Dennis xxx

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Scraps...

Over the last two years, Matt and I have been working on many many projects. The problem with having two people crocheting a lot, is that you end up with a big collection of left-over yarn! A couple of days ago we had a big sort out of all our yarn and found out how much this actually was. After emptying out all the places where we store our yarn we found out that it's enough to fill up a big garbage bag! But is a garbage bag really the right place for all this forgotten yarn? It's a bit sad to just throw it all away, but then again, what can you make from these tiny little amounts of yarn?

I started to see a little project in this bunch of happy colors! A blanket! I started to experiment a little with some different squares and even tried to knit one! My knitting is terribly slow however and I was sure I would give up on the blanket after 1 day, so I just went back to the very basics: A simple and plain granny square consisting of 3 rounds.

I showed my project to Matt after I'd made about 4 squares, and he came up with the idea that we could both work on this blanket at the same time! I was thrilled by this, since we never work on something together. Every crocheter has their own tension, and the stitches might come out a little different, but with a blanket like this, it doesn't matter! That's the fun of it! Granny squares can adjust quite a lot because of the spaces in between the stitches. You can use a lot of different types of yarn, thick or thin, acrylic or natural fibers. Of course you have to watch out a tiny little bit, no crazy bulky yarn, and no lace weight yarn, but other than that, pretty much any yarn will do!

We chose to join all the squares as we go, which makes it a very easy project to work on! And did I mention how fast it goes when you work on it together? We join one square after the other, and sometimes even have to wait for each other to finish the joining. In 2 days we managed to make 63 squares! I'm really excited about how colourful it's turning out and I really enjoy going through all the scraps and bits of yarn, because a lot of them bring back memories of other projects we've worked on!

It's also a great project to work on besides your other projects. It doesn't take long to add a couple of squares every day or every week. And as long as you use one colour per square, you don't have so much ends to sew in!

Having a crazy bunch of left-over yarn suddenly doesn't seem like such a bad thing anymore. I think we've found a good solution for it!

What do you do with your left over yarn?

Dennis xxx

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Cushions and Jam Jars!

Hello Everybody!!!
Dennis is back!!! WOOOOPWOOOOOP!!!

It is so amazing to have him home! I had really been missing him lots this time around and am sooooooooooooo happy to have things back to normal. (Untill he goes away on his next three month cruise ship contract).
Do we need a "Previously on According to Matt"?
I think we do, here goes:

That was a quick recap for anybody that was a little lost! Thought I should officially introduce Dennis. I also wanted to try out my new ipad comic book application  :-) !!!!

I know I'm going on a little but I'm really so happy to have him home! He is also a "guy hooker" like me. It was Dennis that taught me to crochet.
It was really nice to hear all of his cruise ship adventure stories and also see what projects he has been working on. He always has something on the go. You can catch up on Dennis' projects and happenings by visiting his blog.

Its a beautiful day today here in Hamburg and I have no rehearsals, physio or singing lessons. Dennis had gone out for lunch with some work friends. This means I'm free all day, until the show in the evening! I love days like this! I can fill them with all of my favourite things, I sure have a lot of things on the go at the moment!!!

This week I have been working lots on my crochet projects and have managed to finish two cushions. I started the first of the two cushions last week and it was finished by the weekend. I posted a picture of it in my "Picture Perfect Sundays" post. Here are a couple more pictures of it:

To be completely honest I was not so happy with the finished product.
It was nothing to do with the amazing pattern, but more the fact that I feel like I had rushed making it. It is supposed to be a pattern for a circular cushion and after searching every shop in Hamburg for a circular and inexpensive pillow I ended up buying a small square cushion. This obviously made my circular cushion not so circular and more of a lumpy blob!

The second problem for me was the colour. I was using a multiple back of acrylic yarn.
For the top part of the cushion I put the colours together randomly as I went along. Usually this works well for me. This time the colours didn't really compliment each other,  instead every colour looked sludgy and dull. It doesn't look so bad in the above picture but on my sofa it had a brownish dirty look to it. Not quite the look I was going for!

So after making a few changes, my first attempt of this gorgeous pattern now looks like this:

I did however keep the bottom part of the cushion and will put it to good use at a later date.

My second attempt of this pattern was much more successful and I am pleased to say that "I LOVE IT". I went out and bought a circular cushion,  the only one I had seen in Hamburg. It was a  pretty large cushion and was much bigger than I had wanted. However, it was a much better option than using a square one again.

This time I arranged the colours so that they followed closely to the spectrum of a rainbow. Doing this made the colours pop out nice and bright. It was amazing to see the same wool and the same colours could look so different if arranged in a different way. No longer dull and dirty but bright and cheery!
I improvised the pattern a little to fit to the huge cushion I had bought. I'm really happy with how it has turned out.

I have also been working on my "Japanese Flower Blanket". Although it is slow work I am happy with the progress I'm making.

I think it will be a good few months before it is finished.
Whilst I make this blanket I am making sure that I sew in the ends as I go along. I'm not making the same mistake as with a previous blanket I have made for my mum.

She is patiently waiting for her finished blanket, but I'm still doing the boring job of sewing in the ends. Little by little its getting closer to being totally finished.
I now leave it at the theatre, so that during the show when im not on stage I can work a little on it. The other guys in my dressing room don't even bat an eye lid anymore that I crochet. I think some secretly think its cool but are too macho to try. I'll crack them some day!!

Finally, this week I have collected lots of little jars from work. They are little jars that were full of tomato Ketchup. Each time somebody finishes with their jar I ask to have it. I'm not so sure what I will do with them but I really think that they are cute.

I will probably turn them into some type of tea light. I'll keep you posted on this little project once I know what I am going to do with them.

I hope that everybody is having a lovely week? Thanks for paying me a visit!

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